Fiber-optic sensors (FOS) can provide many advantages over conventional sensing technologies. Whilst FOSs have been successfully introduced into specialized markets, such as oil and gas, civil-engineering, energy, military/aerospace, evaluation/testing and similar sectors, penetration into a broader range of widespread applications, such as general industrial, biomedical, automotive, consumer and similar sectors, may remain limited. These fields usually require low-complexity system-designs and good cost-to-performance-ratios that are difficult to reach with current FOS technologies. However, in general, complexity and cost limitations may not arise from fiber-sensors and fibers, but rather from the complex optoelectronic signal-processing used for sensor integration. It is common for the costs of signal-integration systems to exceed those of sensor and fiber costs by several orders of magnitude, for example.
Accordingly, to overcome these limitations in the future and to allow for broader usage of FOS technologies, new approaches to optoelectronic signal-processing are desired.